Before We Turn to Stone
by teampeeta1223
Summary: When Katniss arrives back from the Capital, she is left broken and numb. When a familiar face also arrives back, will Katniss be able to help him recover as well? She realizes that this new journey may be harder than fighting in two hunger games and a rebellion. Post-Mockingjay, Pre-epilouge.
1. Boy with the Bread

**Hey! This is my new fanfic, it's post mockingjay, and pre-epilouge. In this story, Katniss has an extremely severe case PTSD (post tramatic stress disorder) and I tried to stay really close to actual the illness as possible. I hope you like it, and review! **

**I do not own THG. If I did, I would not be writing Fanfiction. **

**Only hope – mandy more. (I know its old and kind of weird, but listen anyways) **

Thirty seven days. Thirty seven days since I got back from the Capital. Thirty seven days since I was on trial. Thirty seven days since I've been outside. Thirty seven days since I talked. Thirty seven days since I've seen anyone but Sae and Haymitch, and more than thirty seven days since I've seen _him _

I can't even bring myself to say his name. Once I tried thinking about him, and I ended up sitting in the closet for two straight days.

"Girl, dinner's ready!" Sae calls from downstairs. I trudge downstairs and sit down at the wooden kitchen table. She serves me a plate of bread some kind of stew next to it. It smells oddly familiar. I pick up the bread and examine it. It's so smooth, and when I smell it, it makes me feel…happy? Slightly Joyful? Hope, maybe?

The next feeling hits me like a ton of bricks. It literally knocks the wind out of me. This is _his_ bread. How in the world did Sae get his bread? That must mean… Oh my gosh. He's back. The boy with the bread is back.

I can't breathe. I am literally suffocating myself. I try to get the air back into my lungs, but I can't. I think Sae is yelling, but I don't know. My knuckles are white from gripping the table, but I don't care. I squeeze my eyes shut, and try to ward the memories off, but it's too late. I see Rue, Marvel, Glimmer, Cato, Thresh, Boggs, Finnick, and Prim – my sweet little baby sister getting blown to pieces all right before my eyes. I see Peeta nearly dying, dying and brought back to life, him tortured, and his hands wrapping around my neck.

I hear a scream, and recognize it as mine. I can't stop. These days, sometimes it feels as if I can't control myself at all. Certain things cause these flashbacks as they call them. I never know what makes it happen, all I know is that when I have one, I can feel. I feel emotions – not necessarily good ones, but emotion all the same. Sometimes I get so scared that I blackout, but most times afterward I just run to the closet under the stairs with a blanket and just sit there, and that's what I do this time.

Regardless of who's watching, I snatch the quilt that my mother sent, and get in my hiding spot, but today it feel different. This flashback left me with emotion. I can feel the coldness of the floor beneath me, and feel the stagnant air of the small space. The first tear in a while escapes my eye, and I choke down a sob. Why is it suddenly now that I cry? Is it the bread? Or the power of the flashbacks? Whatever it is, I let it all out. I scream out louder than ever, and I sob and with everything I have. I cry for those who I've killed, for those who've lost, and I cry for those deaths's I witnessed with my very own eyes. I tremble with grief and sadness, and clutch my middle to keep myself from falling apart.

What happened to the Katniss that was strong and brave who never let tears be shed? I envy the old Katniss. She didn't know what it was like to have everyone she remotely cared for be ripped away. She didn't know sadness like I do, even though she thought she did. I scream for that too. For taking those I loved and had with me for granted. I was so stupid! Why didn't I understand that I could lose everyone? I could have been so much more careful! I could have saved everyone! But instead I did the opposite. And I don't believe life will ever get better.

I try to slow my breathing by watching a spider crawl up my arm. Maybe it'll be poisonous and bite me and I'll die, but I think that fate has made it obvious that I'm not supposed to die. Or maybe I've served my purpose for making the world better, and this spider is on a mission from the stars to end me right here and right now.

No such luck.

* * *

Once I crawl out of my closet, I see none other than Haymitch Abernathy is staring at me. I can't help but to feel a little self conscious. I haven't showered in weeks, my hair is untamable, and I'm not even wearing pants. I pull my long shirt down further, and cross my arms over my chest. I feel his stare penetrating through my skull, and I want to run away there and then. This can't be good, whatever it is.

"Well sweetheart, it seems you know what this is about." He says. His voice is free of alcohol, which he gave up when I came home and he became my legal guardian. Haymich has been there through thick and thin and I don't think that I could ask for a better mentor sometimes.

But this time, I don't know what he's talking about. What's up? That I'm mentally insane? That's been "up" for a while.

I just blink in response.

"Well, I'm just gonna say it. Your boy is back, and he's not so much better than you." He says. Oh yeah, I did know that I guess. I just chose to forget it, like half of the other things I've endured in my life.

What am I supposed to do about that? Why is he telling me this? I really don't care, so I grab my quilt and sit in my rocking chair and stare at the fire. Again. I stare so long that it hurts to blink. I think Haymitch is still on my couch, but I don't bother to look at him. I've got other things on my mind. Things of little importance, like the type of stitching on this blanket, and the popping of the fire.

He comes up behind me, and I jump a little. I get startled so easy.

"Katniss, I know this isn't my story to tell, but he's having episodes every night. He still can't tell the difference between real and not real, and you're the only one that knows. You hold the well-being of that boy. No pressure sweet heart, just lettin' you know."

_No pressure Haymitch, none at all. I'm just a sick teenage girl who can't even take care of herself, and you expect me to help the boy I've hurt the most out of everyone. I'm sure that will help so much. _I want to say, but I hold my words, and continue to stare. I hear him sigh, and the door click shut.

My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am seventeen years old. I live in district twelve. It has been more than thirty seven days since I have seen Peeta Mellark. Peeta is back in district twelve. Haymitch says I'm supposed to help him. That is not logical. I think Peeta Mellark still wants to kill me.

I thought life was hard before. This is a whole new realm of hard.


	2. Rain

I've always loved the rain. My father used to say, _"You know what sweet pea?" _and of course, I would say, "_what daddy?"_ The he would tell me, _"You can't have a rainbow without the rain."_ He told me that every single time it rained.

That's why I always think of him on days like this, when it storms so hard that it shakes the whole house, or when you can the water nearly rushing down the sidewalk from the downpour. It washes everything in its path away, and replaces it with something that makes things grow, _Thrive. _Rain is a new beginning. Rain is what makes the flowers grow in the spring, or makes the grass greener.

It makes the dandelions come back.

This morning I wake up to the smell of a downpour, and bread. Of course bread. I can hear the clanking of pans, the sizzle of a stove, and light footsteps coming up the stairs. I close my eyes like a child would to fake being asleep, so whoever is planning to try to get you up thinks that you're still sleeping.

I hear the door creak open, and I force my breath to become even instead of shallow. A gust of the smell of bacon hits me, and it takes all of my will-power to not sniff the air like a dog. My plan is obviously foiled when I feel say rip the sheets of my body and the cold air engulfs me.

"Rise and shine, Girl! Breakfast ain't gonna' eat itself!" She says in my ear. I pull the covers back up to show her that I am not leaving this bed.

"Fine then. If it's come to this." She mutters underneath her breath. If it's come to what? What does that even mean?

I'm almost positive that she's gone, so I try to fall back asleep. Who needs to eat anyways? I reposition myself under the covers, and pull the blanket over my head. Gosh, it's warm. I can just make out hushed voices coming from downstairs. I don't know who it is, and I surely don't care.

Again, there are footsteps coming from the staircase, but this time, they're heavier and uneven. I do as I did before, and pretend I'm sleeping.

"Hey… uh… Katniss… can you please get up…?" _he _asks. Why is he here? At my house? In my room? Doesn't he know that I can't see him? It just hurts too much!

I close my eyes even tighter, and try to control my breathing, which is now in shallow, uneven breaths. _He's here! In my house!_ One part of my brain screams at me in happiness. Another part yells at it and tells it that it caused all of his pain and suffering. That part shut the happy part right up.

"Katniss? Will you please answer me?" He nearly whispers.

_I don't want to answer! I don't want to talk to anyone! What do you think makes you so special? _ I want to shout. But I don't.

_He loves you! He loves you! He's special and you know it! _

I am having an argument with myself. I am truly insane.

He takes a shaky step towards me, and then hesitantly backs up again.

"Sae, I can't do it! You know I can't!" He shouts down the hallway. He can't what? Touch me? Look at me? Wake me up? Love me? Not strangle me? The list is endless.

I peek my head out of the covers to see Peeta staring at me concerned. His face is thinner than I remember, and his blonde locks are longer, disheveled, and swept across his forehead. His grey tee shirt shows his slumped posture more than ever, and that he's lost some weight. The most changed – or unchanged, however you look at it – is his eyes. The clear blueness of them is like before he was hijacked, but they read hollow, like after our first games.

His eyes spot mine and I half-expect him to come over and tell me I'm a mutt and scream at me, but he doesn't. He just gnaws at his bottom lip and rubs kicks an imaginary rock around the carpet with his good leg.

I avoid his gaze, and pick at a stray thread on my sheets.

The silence is beyond awkward.

"Katniss, I think you should get up and eat breakfast." He says very quiet and hesitant. I look up from my sheets again and glare at him. "Trust me, I know it's hard to get up, but I really think you should go eat something." Why does he care so much? I continue to glare as he sighs and runs a hand through his hair, then down his face. "Please?" He somewhat whines.

_He cares about you. _

_No he doesn't. _

_Yes he does. _

_He stopped when you let him get hijacked. _

I let this boy right in front of me get tortured; I broke him into a million pieces so many times. He used to love me so much, and I took it all for granted. Now he probably hates me, and sees me as a pathetic girl who doesn't talk because she hurts everyone around her.

I try so hard to swallow the lump in my throat, but I fail miserably. I sob escapes, and I burry my face in a pillow. I don't even want to see his face. I can't control the next one, or the one after that. I'm shaking I'm crying so hard.

"Katniss? Why are you crying?" I jump to a start. He's right next to my bed, trying to see my face under the covers. "Do you want to write it down?" he asks. I looks at him with my tear stained face, and he holds notepad that Haymitch sometimes uses when he wants me to answer something. I wonder if he gave it to him.

I just shake my head no. I don't want to even look at Peeta. Another sob escapes.

He looks like he's contemplating something in his mind by the he gets a far off look and his eyebrows pull together.

"Real or not real, I...ah… used to hold you a lot?" He says the last sentence so quiet, I almost didn't hear it.

I just barely nod my head yes.

"Real or not real, you would slap me when I did that?" The old Katniss might have laughed at that. She would have crawled into his arms and then half-heartedly slapped him, and then they would have laughed, and Peeta would peck her on the lips, and she'd pucker hers again wanting another.

The old Katniss and Peeta would have been the perfect couple.

But now we're just left with shells of ourselves, and one can't even tell the difference between what's real, and what's not. I'm just purely insane, and have lost most feeling.

Sometimes I wish the Old Katniss was back. She was happy compared to me. She had those she loved around her, and she never felt grief. I am not the same person I used to be. But maybe I don't. Maybe I like not feeling sometimes.

"Katniss?" Peeta says.

I just shake my head no in response to his question.

Peeta sighs and nods. Even with his eyes downcast, you can see the depression in his eyes. The sadness and hurt. Dare I say it – I miss the Old Peeta. I miss him more that Old Katniss. I try to choke down a sob again. I miss the happiness in his eyes, and the way he would smile up at me when I would watch him draw. I miss his strong steady hands around my waist, even if it was for pretend, I still miss them. I think what I missed the most though was that he was always there for me when I needed him.

He stands up, glances back once, and walks out of my bedroom door.

Old Peeta seems forever lost.

* * *

After what seems like an eternity later, I trudge downstairs to find Sae and Peeta eating eggs, bacon, and bread. Raisin nut bread.

I close my eyes, and put my elbows on the counter and hold my head in my hands. God! Why the hell did he have to make that bread? Is this fate? Is it telling me with rain and bread that I'm supposed to repay him and help him? Or is that just Haymith's words screaming to me in my head again? I'm thinking the latter. Or maybe I'm just starving again and fate is telling me to eat some freaking bread. I don't know, so I scream.

There's a crash of plates, and the screaming of Sae. I don't think that was me? Was it me? No, I'm still screaming. Another plate crash, and this time screaming from Peeta. Something about a mutt. Maybe he'll kill me. Oh well. Haven't I been dead the whole time?

"Katniss! Get away! God, please!?" He's screaming for me to leave, but my head is still in my hands and I can't move – I'm paralyzed.

I'm just waiting for Peeta to strangle me, or hit me over the head with a plate, but it never comes. I turn around to find him on the floor nearly ripping his hair out. Funny, I'm doing the same thing on the counter.

So I decide to sit on the floor and scream with him.


End file.
